Parsha Tazria - Bearing Seed

By Richard Sison | 2019

Introduction

Tazria is Hebrew for bearing seed (or she conceives). It is the 13th word, and the first distinctive word, in the parsha. It is the 27th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the fourth in the Book of Leviticus. The parsha discusses ritual impurity among other things.

This week’s Parsha Tazria, is about the ailment's diagnosis and treatment, while next week's Parsha M'tzora, is concerned with the "clean-up" after the diagnosis. In the ancient time the sages believe that all sickness seemed incurable by human beings, and so its root cause also could not be human. Thus, however a disease "presented," its origin must have been from G-D. In this Parsha, the word tzaraat in Hebrew is used to describe various kinds of skin diseases. The Rabbis of the Midrash, recalling that Miriam also got afflicted with tzaraat after she speaks ill of Moses' Kushite wife in Numbers 12, imagined that tzaraat was a punishment for motzi shem ra - “speaking badly of someone" (Midrash Vayikra Rabbah 16:1-6). The Midrash understands the law of leprosy as an allusion to seven traits that G-D hates as mentioned in Proverbs 6:16.

There are six things Adonai hates,
seven which he detests:
a haughty look, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that plots wicked schemes,
feet swift in running to do evil,
a false witness who lies with every breath,
and him who sows strife among brothers.

Proverbs 6:16-19

The message